Just Label It, News Roundup 8-3

Campbell’s, Coca-Cola and Unilever are among the food companies supporting full disclosure of genetically modified organisms in food, an EWG analysis shows. Attorneys for a school groundskeeper suing Monsanto over his terminal lymphoma suggested to a California jury Friday that the agrichemical company submitted fraudulent cancer data to U.S. regulators so it could sell its Roundup weed killer. This came despite court orders barring testimony on the topic. Environmental Protection Agency emails show the agency approved Monsanto herbicide label changes after consulting with company. Bees living in suburban habitats are still being exposed to significant levels of pesticides, despite the EU ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides on flowering crops, according to new research from University of Sussex scientists. Also in the news, Hmong farmers Blia and Phua Thao put their 40-plus years of experience to work in Spring Valley, Wisconsin, where they grow organic produce entirely by hand.

Attorneys for a school groundskeeper suing Monsanto over his terminal lymphoma suggested to a California jury Friday that the agrichemical company submitted fraudulent cancer data to U.S. regulators so it could sell its Roundup weed killer, against court orders barring testimony on the topic.

Natural and organic lawn and garden consumables are growing in popularity but are expected to remain a niche with less than 10% of overall sales through 2022. Organic pesticides are both the largest and fastest growing organic product type, as consumers increasingly view the chemicals used in traditional pesticides as unsafe. These and other trends are presented in Lawn & Garden Consumables: Consumer Insights, a new study from The Freedonia Group, a Cleveland-based industry research firm.

As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency prepared to make label changes for the herbicide dicamba after it caused widespread crop damage, the agency depended on the herbicide’s maker for guidance, documents produced in a federal lawsuit show.

Bees living in suburban habitats are still being exposed to significant levels of pesticides despite the EU ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides on flowering crops, new research from University of Sussex scientists shows.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) said on Wednesday mutagenesis-based gene-editing methods such as CRISPR/Cas9, which can rearrange targeted bits of DNA, fall under rules that now apply to genetic modification via strands of DNA from a different species.